Not All Fire Protection Scores Are Built for Underwriting

October 21, 2025 / 3 min read

Verisk’s competitors are often quick to tout statistics such as number of hydrants and proximity of fire stations, selling publicly available data and calling it a fire protection score. But insurers rely on Verisk’s fire protection scoring. Loss experience proves that what looks “good enough” in a demo can collapse under real underwriting pressure, regulatory review, or portfolio performance.

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Today’s market is crowded with providers pushing quick hazard scores. But behind the marketing, many rely on scraped public records, counting hydrants, and nearest-station assumptions—surface-level proxies that may look precise but don’t hold up when insurers need real underwriting intelligence.

Verisk has done it differently for decades, supplying underwriters with reliable, insurance-grade fire protection data. With LOCATION^® Public Protection Classification (PPC^®), trusted by nearly 400 insurers, including nine of the top 10 homeowners carriers, and the next-generation LOCATION^® Property Protection Score (PPS), Verisk provides unmatched depth, precision, and proven performance.

Data that’s proven—not just public

Verisk’s competitors often lack the field validation, actuarial rigor, and regulatory alignment underwriting requires.

Verisk’s fire protection intelligence is built on:

Decades of proprietary claims, underwriting, and engineering data
ISO^® fire service expertise embedded in LOCATION PPC
Direct endorsements and input from thousands of fire chiefs and national fire associations
Alignment with regulators and rating bureaus in all 50 states

This isn’t repackaging public or third-party data. It’s fire intelligence engineered for insurers.

Three critical differentiators

Competitors often spotlight hydrant numbers, drive times, and parcel-level scores as if those alone define fire protection. But dots on a map and proximity guesses aren’t enough. Here’s where Verisk stands apart:

Water that works: Competitors can count hydrants. Verisk knows whether the water is actually there, how much is available, the pressure, and how long it can be sustained. That’s the difference between superficial data and operational protection intelligence.
Drive time that matters: The nearest station isn’t always the responding one. In fact, 20% of the time, it isn’t. LOCATION PPS, for Personal Lines Homeowners, delivers drive times from the actual responding fire station, not lazy nearest-station estimates.
True address-level scoring: Some competitors claim address precision while accusing Verisk of community-level scoring. The truth? LOCATION PPC delivers a score for every U.S. address, plus community context to give underwriters both clarity and flexibility. Now, with LOCATION PPS, Verisk supplies even more granular address-level scoring for Personal Lines Homeowners.

Where competitors stop at “distance to the nearest station,” Verisk delivers true operational fire response capacity.

Built for underwriting, trusted by insurers

Fire protection intelligence is only valuable if it can hold up to regulatory scrutiny and underwriting at scale. That’s why PPC, and now PPS, are in a league of their own:

Licensed by nearly 400 insurers, including nine of the top 10 homeowners carriers—a mark of the trust carriers place in Verisk over competitors

Backed by 50+ years of field data collection and validation

Informed by relationships with more than 10,000 fire chiefs nationwide
Continuously updated through community surveys, outreach programs, and quality assurance

The Bottom Line

Over-marketed guesswork isn’t fire protection intelligence. When billions are on the line, “good enough” is never enough.

That’s why many of the industry’s leading insurers rely on Verisk’s LOCATION PPC today and are adopting PPS as the next generation of fire protection intelligence.

See how LOCATION PPC and PPS deliver the confidence underwriters need